Archive for June, 2010

The Unicorn Meat advert went semi-viral after it was posted on April Fools’ Day this year. But there’s an update to the innocent prank.

I’d never heard of the National Pork Board, but apparently they sniffed out a clear case of trademark infringement. On 5 May 2010, the international law firm of Faegre & Benson faxed the owners of the Think Geek website a 12-page letter, excerpted below.

“This law firm represents National Pork Board in connection with its intellectual property rights.

We are writing to you in connection with your activities at the website http://www.thinkgeek.com, wherein you have been marketing a product called “Radiant Farms Canned Unicorn Meat” using the slogan “Unicorn- the new white meat.”

See, NPB owns the trademark “The Other White Meat” in the U.S., Canada, and the European Union. Unfortunately their lawyers didn’t realize that Trademark Infringement does not extend to parodies, and that unicorns don’t really exist. [Full story here, via here, and crossposted here.]

Eubie Blake was awesome. He was 95 in 1978 when this interview was recorded.

During the break there’s an advertisement for the troublesome RadioShack TRS-80 computer system, using magenetic tape cassettes for data storage. Only cost $599! That’s about $2,000 in today’s dollars. Later on, after users complained about problems with the cassette drives, Tandy eventually offered an awesome 5MB hard drive accessory, about the same size as a PC today, for $1,500 – a whopping $4,900 today.

Okay, 1978 was probably the peak of the (gag) disco phase, and the birth of R&B pop love anthems. There is absolutely nothing that ranked in the top 20 that I’d post here, except for maybe for the Stone’s “Miss You.” Worst song they ever did IMO.

On the other hand, this song made No. 41, and Randy Newman gets kudos for writing the most misunderstood song of the year: